


Home

by cryptidquill



Category: Homestuck
Genre: F/M, Humanstuck, we stan 1 (one) straight ship
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-04-06
Updated: 2020-04-06
Packaged: 2021-03-01 21:15:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,988
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23503711
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cryptidquill/pseuds/cryptidquill
Summary: Four times Aradia Megido told her best friend that she loved him, and one time she didn't need to.
Relationships: Sollux Captor/Aradia Megido
Comments: 4
Kudos: 22





	Home

The first time Aradia Megido told her best friend that she loved him, he was asleep. She should have been, too. It was four in the morning, after all. But she just couldn’t. Those nights were always stressful, the ones where she climbed his porch walls and into his room because her mother and father had come home drunk and her sister was still gone and it was loud, too loud for her to sleep. She didn’t want to think about what might happen if Sollux’s father found a girl with tear-stained cheeks curled up next to his son the next morning. Sollux figured that if it happened it happened, but it just was worth getting grounded for the next month if it meant providing Aradia just a little bit of safety.  
The only light in the room came from the tiny sliver of moonlight outside. They always left the curtains open when she was there, so the sunrise would wake at least one of them up. Sollux always fell asleep first, one arm hanging loosely around her shoulders. She usually fell asleep not long after that. But not tonight. She laid there, watching him in the dim light. And she said it, so softly that had he been awake he still would not have heard it.  
Part of her wanted to take back her words as soon as she’d said them. She was young, far too young, to jump to such conclusions. Thirteen is too young. But she also knew this. Thirteen is also too young to worry about her safety in her own home. Safety wasn’t a house, safety was his arms.  
So she made peace with her words. They were safe with the night sky that sparkled down on her, promising not to tell a soul what she’d said.  
Dawn came too soon, and she slipped away without a word. 

The second time Aradia Megido told her best friend that she loved him, she was crying. Hard.  
They were fourteen and Aradia’s father knew where she was slipping off to on those stressful nights. And he hit her for it. Hard. Again and again and again until Damara and her mother pulled him off.  
She ran, and no one tried to stop her.  
It was only eleven PM. Someone else, either Mituna or Sollux’s father, was bound to be awake. So she did the slightly more dignified thing and rang the doorbell instead of rapping on Sollux’s window. His father came to the door, and his expression told Aradia that Sollux had never disclosed her familial situation. He quickly ushered her inside and told her to wait while he got Sollux. A few moments later, he came barreling down the stairs and pulled her into a delicate hug. “I’m so fucking sorry,” he whispered.  
He led her upstairs and sat her on his bed while he got the first aid kit. There wasn’t one of those at the Megido house. He wiped her tears, cleaned her face, and held her hand while she cried. Sollux didn’t ask questions. He never did. And maybe that’s why those words bubbled to the surface again, spilling out of her mouth so fast she couldn’t have hoped to stop them.  
Sollux froze. Aradia froze. Then she started to cry harder, the space between them a mess of blood and tears and apologies. “I have to go to the bathroom,” she said, and quickly left the scene of her crime.  
He was sitting on the bed when she returned. Expressionless. He simply sat there, waiting for her to talk. “I’m so sorry,” she said, fiddling with the hem of her shirt. “I just-- I didn’t mean to-- I-- I wanted you to know.” she stared at the ground.  
“Ara…” Sollux stood, and she stayed still as a statue as he pulled her into a hug.  
“Can we forget that ever happened?” Aradia laughed nervously. She felt him nod. “Thank you.”  
“Let me finish cleaning you up,” he said, and she sat back on the bed obediently.  
Aradia never had to climb through a window in the Captor’s house again. Sollux’s father made it very clear that she could come knocking anytime, no matter what. Sometimes she missed the secrecy, the sense of adventure that came with sneaking in. 

The third time Aradia Megido told her best friend that she loved him, she technically didn’t. One of her other friends had told her to move on from that absolutely totally laaaaaaaame video game nerd, and shoot higher. Way higher. So, when Equius Zahhak asked her out, she didn’t say no.  
Technically, she didn’t say yes, either. She just smiled tightly and nodded, and ignored the patches of sweat that soaked the sides of his t-shirt.  
Aradia was always welcome at the Zahhak house. Actually, it was more of a mansion than a house (Eq had the whole basement to himself). Her mother was more than pleased that she stopped hanging out with “that shrimp of a boy”. Equius was always welcome at the Megido house, but Aradia took extreme measures to make sure he would never set foot there. She’d sooner bring him to Sollux’s than that hellhole.  
It was a Saturday night. Equius was at his parent’s beach house, and she couldn’t stand being home all weekend, so she camped at Sollux’s. Just like she used to. They stayed up until the unholy hours of the night, telling each other about the weird things their new friends got up to (Equius knew the strangest people, and she had to promise that they all existed or Sollux wouldn’t have believed her). She fell silent around three in the morning, and Sollux suggested they get some sleep.  
Aradia started to get off the bed. “Where are you going?” he asked. She started to explain that Equius would kill her if he knew she’d slept in the same bed as a boy other than him, and all Sollux did was laugh. “We’re still best friends,” he said.  
“But I still--” she caught herself, and she saw his expression change. He knew. He always knew, somehow. Sollux sighed, and pulled back the covers, scooting all the way to one side so she would know she was still welcome. She was careful not to touch him. Sollux turned off the light, and they laid in silence for a few minutes.  
“Why are you dating him?”  
“I don’t know.”  
“Oh.”  
“Yeah.”  
“Do you love him?”  
“No.”  
“Will you?”  
“I don’t think so.” Aradia rolled over so she wasn’t facing him, and the conversation was over. 

The fourth time Aradia Megido told her best friend that she loved him, she definitely shouldn’t have.  
Aradia was over a year into her relationship with Equius. He wanted to buy her a car for her sixteenth birthday. She tried to explain that she wouldn’t be getting her driver’s license anytime soon. She hadn’t even taken the classroom course yet. He ignored her and asked what color she wanted. He was insistent, and she was going out of her mind.  
It wasn’t just that. It was the million other things about him she, for lack of a better word, despised. The sweat was just the tip of the iceberg. It was the weird horse obsession, the constant gifts, the way he talked down to anyone from her neighborhood that wasn’t her or her family. The way he made her feel small and helpless to inflate his own ego.  
She couldn’t take it anymore.  
Her birthday was in a week, and she was studying at Equius’s house after school when Sollux called her to ask what she wanted for a present. “Nothing much. Maybe one of those terrible looking games we see in the discount bin at Walmart,” she joked. She was watching Equius out of the corner of her eye, watching the way his expression hardened as he tried to work out who she was talking to. She made a split-second decision she immediately regretted. “Talk to you later. Love you.” Aradia hung up the phone. Equius sat in stunned silence.  
There were a million things she could have said to make this better, and a million things she could have said to make this much, much worse. She chose to say none of them. Instead, she slid off the sweat-stained hoodie he had given her, gathered up her books, and left without a word. 

Aradia had never thought it would come to this. She had always thought that, once she turned eighteen, she would have a best friend’s house to run to when she left her house for good. Instead, she packed her backpack with spare clothes and a few keepsakes, and walked to the bus stop.  
She hadn’t talked to Sollux in two years. She hadn’t seen him in two months, not since graduation. He’d had Feferi Peixes hanging off his arm while they posed for pictures as the class of 2020’s favorite couple. Disgusting.  
Not that it mattered, anyway. She’d been waiting for this moment for five years. She’d just thought that she’d have someone here with her to celebrate. Aradia checked her watch. The bus would come at eight PM sharp. She had ten minutes. Ten minutes for what? She shook her head. No one was coming. She had no friends. Her only friends had been Sollux’s or Equius’s. She was on her own, and that fact was both exhilarating and terrifying.  
Headlights. She ignored them. The car they belonged to parked a few feet away. She ignored that, too, opting to stare at her lap instead. Someone sat down on the bench next to her. It wasn’t until the person put an arm around her that she took notice.  
“What the fuck do you--” she faltered mid cuss out. “Oh. It’s just you.”  
“‘Just’ me?” Sollux snorted. “Wow. To think I drove around town checking every bus station to get called ‘just’. Thanks a lot.”  
She should move so his arm wasn’t on her. She knew that. She couldn’t bring herself to. It had been so long. There were a million things she wanted to say.  
“Why are you here?” she asked instead. “Why isn’t Feferi with you?”  
“Oh, uh. I figured you would have heard. We broke up.” Sollux said flatly.  
“Oh. I’m sorry.”  
“Don’t be. It needed to happen because-- well. She wasn’t very happy to hear something that needed to be said.” The bus rounded the corner and Aradia’s stomach flipped.  
“And what was that?” she whispered.  
“I think I’m in love with you. And I know this is the worst possible time to talk about this, but I needed… I needed to stop you. I need to keep you here, with me.”  
“I can’t.”  
The bus screeched to a stop in front of them, and Aradia stood up. Sollux followed. “Aradia--”  
“I can’t.” She said again. He took her hand, and she desperately wanted to shake him off. To get on the bus and never look back. Sollux pulled her close, and she let him. Even after all these years he still felt like home. She would not cry. No, she wouldn’t--  
Shit. She was crying, crying like she hadn’t in a long time.  
“Yes, you can. Let me take you home. My home,” he didn’t need to clarify; never in a million years would he ever bring her back to the place she grew up. Not willingly. “Aradia please.” He kissed the top of her head, and any doubt she had melted away.  
“Okay,” she said finally. He pulled away and picked up her backpack. She followed him numbly to his car. Neither said a word on the drive to his house. They didn’t need to. His brother and father were out when they arrived, and Sollux led her to his room. They laid on his bed, Aradia’s head on his chest, and she closed her eyes.  
She was finally home.


End file.
